WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida's foreign fighters who have for years bedeviled Iraq are increasingly going to Afghanistan to fight instead, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States said Wednesday.
"We have heard reports recently that many of the foreign fighters that were in Iraq have left, either back to their homeland or going to fight in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is now seeming to be more suitable for al-Qaida fighters," said Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie.
aq," he said. "In whole areas they ceased to operate as effective terrorist networks."

This is a rush transcript from "America's Election HQ," July 21, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
E.D. HILL, HOST: Barack Obama says that he wants our troops out of Iraq in two years and Iraq says it does, too, as long as there hasn't been an increase in violence. The Iraqi government released a statement saying that it's hopeful conditions on the ground will allow American troops to leave by 2010. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly warns against setting a specific time line:
Watch E.D.'s interview

Did the New York Time’s really have to go and reject an op-ed by Sen. John McCain? Editorial prerogative aside, the decision sure seems to add to the claim

Nancy Kruh is a freelance writer in Dallas; her e-mail address is nkruh@balanceofopinion.com.
Barack Obama heads to Germany, France and England later this week on his whirlwind multinational tour, and the punditry is hard at work setting the stakes that await.
h Syria. ...

By Howard Kurtz Prospective authors don't usually make a big announcement when their prose is rejected by the New York Times Op-Ed page.

By Muhammad Cohen HONG KONG - As he began his tour of overseas war zones present and past, the Iraq issue bounced Senator Barack Obama's way. As he demonstrated with US troops in Kuwait on Saturday, presidential hopeful Obama knows basketball, and in hoops, as in politics, it's not the bounces but putting the ball in the basket that matters.
On this trip, the all-but-official Democratic presidential nominee needs to show more than just a dazzling floor game. Obama needs to score throughout the trip, not just with foreign leaders,
s possible. Asked specifically about Obama's 16-month schedule for pulling out, Maliki called it "the right timeframe for a withdrawal". Obama

Iraq is an example of a profound failure of US policy. Afghanistan must not fall victim to a similar failure by either of the rivals for the White House.
SIXTY years ago, Harry Truman, the Democrat president, was the underdog in the White House race against Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman succeeded to the presidency on the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, and embraced a strategy, known as the "whistle-stop campaign", to reach as many voters as he could. He travelled coast to coast by train and, against all expectations, won.
ile America is engaged in foreign conflicts. The difference is that Senator Obama is not travelling coast to coast on a train. He has taken his

US: JOHN McCAIN has said that, now that Barack Obama has seen the success of the increase in US troop numbers in Iraq, the Democrat should admit that he was wrong to oppose the new military strategy.
Mr McCain was speaking as Mr Obama's international tour dominated US television news with almost overwhelmingly positive coverage of the Democratic candidate's visits to Afghanistan and Iraq.
o lose a war in Iraq in my view in order to win in Afghanistan.